


Behold This Little Bane

by kayura_sanada



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Drama & Romance, F/M, Ha Ha Nerd, Post-Trespasser, Solas Lives, Trespasser Spoilers, soul marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 12:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14568585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: Everyone is born with a Boon or a Bane. From the start, it was clear that Pinga Lavellan’s was a Bane. And Solas’? Well, it certainly seemed like a Boon. At first.





	Behold This Little Bane

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem of the same title. Many words, phrases, etc. are taken from FenxShiral’s Project Elvhen, which is almost a necessity if one wishes to use the elven language, and which I own in no way whatsoever.

It was said that, when Pinga was first born, her parents had looked upon her back and wept.

_will carry the weight of the wolf on her back_

There had never been any question as to whether her words were a Boon or a Bane.

Their keeper had spoken with her parents for hours. Istamaethoriel never told Pinga what had been discussed, but there were plenty of rumors. Of her trying to teach the family what to do to keep her from Fen’Harel’s grasp; of her placing wards or sigils on Pinga’s soul to keep Fen’Harel at bay; of her taking baby Pinga into the Fade to do the same in her dreams; of warning her parents that, if Pinga brought Fen’Harel to their clan, she would have to toss Pinga away.

That last one had haunted her for years.

She’d grown up with her family watching her every move; before she was able to walk properly, her father had begun teaching her how to fight. Her mother had taught her how to hide, to run. When she’d been older, her father had taught her how to hold a blade, and then, when she showed a distaste for it, switched to the bow. Her mother helped her out with that, too, teaching her swiftness over strength. Her parents had held their breaths, waiting for the day she might disappear in the wolf’s jaws.

They watched her so closely, they missed what was happening to their younger son.

His had been what everyone had thought to be a Boon: _peace before his time_. Apparently, it had been a warning.

After her brother’s murder at the hands of humans, Pinga’s life took a drastic turn. Her father grew more and more distant, at first hunting the humans responsible, and then leaving the family for hours, sometimes days, at a time, when the last human hid within the village nearby. She’d been too young to understand, but her mother seemed to have. Still, during those months, her mother had changed her tactics with Pinga. When instead she’d been warned of dangers all her life, she was sat down one night.

“Pinga,” her mother had said, holding her shoulders and looking her dead in the eye, “do not ever forget what is most important.”

“ _Mamae?”_ She sat with her hands in her lap. Her mother’s eyes were similar to her own, an odd indigo. She’d never seen them so intense, even when her mother had insisted she hide if something too strong for her came.

“Remember, because many people forget.” Her mother slid her hands down Pinga’s tiny arms and squeezed tight, just long enough for her to understand it was important. “Many people, they will choose something more important than this. It does not mean they do not feel it. It simply means they do not believe it is as important. It is. It is the most important thing in the world.” Her mother knelt before her. “Love.” Pinga scrunched her face in confusion. “Love is the most important thing. Never forget to love others, my Pinga. Never forget that, even if you find a cause worth fighting for, even if you find something you want, or even need. Love, loving another, loving those around you. It is most important. If you forget this, you may find that, someday, you turn away from those you love, even hurt them, because they are not as important to you as something else.”

Pinga didn’t understand. She was only ten, and the words didn’t make sense to her. But at the time, she’d thought she understood. “I’ll always love you, _mamae_. And _babae,_ too.”

Her mother smiled and patted her head. “Not just us, _da’len_. Love others. Your family. Your clan. Your friends. If you find someone to love above all others, love them. Love the people you love more than food, or music, or our peoples’ history, or revenge. Can you do that for your mother?”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. Loving people was easy.

* * *

Until the day she wore her mother’s blood on her cheeks and saw her father felled by her clan before her eyes. Perhaps loving people was harder than anything else.

* * *

Solas could hardly remember when he’d first learned what his words were. The line of black on his back was something he’d never considered before; it simply was. Those around him, if they did not have the proper deportment to cover it up, also had them. It wasn’t until he started fighting against the tyranny around him that he started thinking on the words.

_will survive_

A Boon, then, though he knew not what it was he would survive. The war? Another betrayal? His plan to sunder the Fade? To him, it sounded almost like a warning: prepare for the worst. But he would survive. That was its message.

If his Boon demanded he continue clawing forward, then that was what he would do.

* * *

He had survived. Though, perhaps, he thought, seeing the destruction he’d wrought as his creation cut souls off in the Fade, tore down Arlathan and all of elven culture and history, perhaps it would have been better if he hadn’t.

For a Boon, it certainly felt more like a curse.

* * *

When he first opened his eyes, Solas wasn’t certain if he wasn’t somehow still in a dream. Though he knew, with the knowledge of one who intimately understood the Fade, that he had left the realm of dreams, he still found himself gaping wide-eyed at the expanse before him. No longer were there arching rivers in the sky or elves frittering their days away. Gone were the statues tall enough to see above the mountains and cities that graced the tops of entire forests. Gone was… everything. And in its place was something so stagnant, so stale, he could taste it like mold on the wind. He shivered.

_Will survive_. Yes. He certainly survived. But survival was no Boon.

* * *

She still remembered that night, when her father had led her and her mother to the cave in the forest. The light that had flickered within, soft candlelight that had looked, to her, like creatures reaching out from the darkness. Her father had been the only one in the cave, until her mother entered with him that night. Pinga, ordered by her mother to stay outside, had seen only the flickers of that light before her mother had screamed.

She remembered the blood, the hands of her mother as she’d reached for Pinga, shouting at her to run. The moonlight that had glinted on the dagger in her father’s hand.

That night, her father had been caught by the clan. Not fast enough to save her mother, but fast enough to save her. Her keeper had wrapped her in a blanket, treated the cut her father had given her across her shoulder, and had promised to take care of her.

“Daddy hates me,” she’d whispered, still unable to think of him as dead.

“No,” the keeper had said, and had held her close, avoiding the bright red stain of bandages on her shoulder. “He loved you. You and Aningan both.” She’d kissed the top of Pinga’s head. “He’d simply loved a little too strongly.”

She’d frowned. “ _Mamae_ told me to love people.” She’d cried then, all over again, and the keeper had been unable to do more than cradle her and make shushing noises. There had been no platitudes. She’d been beyond them, and they would only have hurt her.

For years, the memory of that night had tainted her vision. She hadn’t known how much love was too much. How could she measure it, to ensure she didn’t fall too deep? What parts of love were ‘too much’? Hugging? Holding hands? Mourning?

Worse had been the aftereffects of that night, aftereffects that never wore off. She’d endured countless years of animosity from her clan for what her father had done. It had made it hard to uphold her promise to her mother.

The animosity had only grown, Keeper Istamaethoriel kept telling her, because of their fear. They feared the writing on her back. Even though she kept it covered, a warning of Fen’Harel had been placed there, and the clan had been told of such when she’d been born, “so that,” the keeper had informed her, “they could be prepared.” That alone was what they knew of her Bane – and that alone was enough to make them keep their distance. But if that hadn’t been enough, there had been her father’s acts. His prayers to Anaris. His sacrifices. They feared what he might have taught her.

In consolation, or perhaps in a desperate bid for understanding, Pinga had turned to history. Her peoples’ culture, or what was left of it. If she could only understand, then perhaps she would be able to do as her mother asked. If she could only be what her mother had wanted, perhaps she would be able to carry whatever weight her Bane demanded of her.

She helped her clan. She became as good a scout as a person could. She worked on her archery until her fingers blistered, until she could shoot a ram from eighty meters. She took up the posts during the evening hours, when many others had to go home to their families. She, on more than one occasion, caught humans encroaching too close to their clan and scared them off, often by making it seem like a bear was nearby, thus keeping them away without notifying them of the clan’s proximity. It became a standard of the clan’s, until they were actually being warned by the human villagers they traded with to avoid the very areas of the forests they hid within due to a ‘bear infestation.’

And often, when she was alone, she danced.

At first, she had simply been afraid to speak. Afraid to show her emotions, her pain, because the clan was busy vilifying her father, even questioning her mother, and looking sideways at her. Grief for her lost father would look like she might have been a part of what he’d been doing. Grief for her mother was all she was allowed. For weeks, she had bottled up her feelings for her father, until finally, one night, Keeper Istamaethoriel led her out from the edges of the _aravel_ to the first few trees lining their hideaway. The keeper had turned Pinga away from the scouts nearby and had whispered, “let me show you what I do when I am lonely or sad.”

And the keeper had shown her, for the first time, a dance passed down among the generations of elves who had come before her.

It was something no one else was supposed to learn, save the Second. Yet Istamaethoriel gave her that gift, and another, and another. Until Pinga was in her twenties and creating her own.

She didn’t know if it would help her carry what she had to carry in her life. But she did know that it helped her carry what she had now.

* * *

It was a wasteland.

Solas found the few elves who yet lingered on this earth, only to find them lost within a haze of misinformation. As if the loss of the Fade had severed from them everything that they were, instead of just that which had been intertwined with the spirits. He had never thought his actions would have so far a reach. Nearly four thousand years, and instead of his hope that they might recover, they had fallen apart entirely. Or, more accurately, been wrenched apart. By his actions, by the humans around them. They’d been brought so low that humans had defeated them, harvested them like cattle, and left the remains of his people to scurry like rats along the edges of humanity’s domain.

This would have to be fixed. Somehow, he would have to fix this. And hopefully, his so-called ‘Boon’ would not follow him through this next journey.

* * *

She looked at her left hand, eyes wide. Green light sparked, an almost living thing. She thought of the words on her back and blanched.

Was this Fen’Harel’s? Was this the weight?

Not that she’d never thought such things before. She tried to calm herself. There were humans involved in this. Fen’Harel cared little for the humans’ religions and chantries. There would be no reason for him to be involved in this.

She let the humans lead her. She had been around them before, many times; her people spoke with humans when they needed to trade, and otherwise kept carefully to themselves. She had been forced to speak to them herself, growing up; scouts needed to be the first line of defense in every situation. At first, she’d been afraid. Humans had murdered her brother. An entire village of humans had protected one of those murderers.

Back then, the villagers she’d met had been different than this. They’d been welcoming of their meats and cloths. These humans were exactly as she’d imagined when she’d first gone to a human settlement as an adult. The hatred on their faces, the disgust, the… the egotism. The condescension. The idea that they could do whatever they wanted because she was an elf. Would they do this to their own kind, as well? Or were they full of so much hate that even race could not penetrate their sense of self-importance?

She hunched into herself as the human woman led her through the crowds of jeers and taunts. She tried to remember what her mother had said. Sometimes it was hard; she always tried to remember that look her mother had bore, that serious, you- _must-listen_ look, but it was getting harder and harder to remember the exact shade of her eyes. Too often, Pinga merely saw her own.

The human woman – Cassandra – ordered her to go out and take care of the problem – ‘the problem’ being a huge, green hole in the sky that led directly to the Fade – and she had little choice but to do as the woman said. Whatever the thing on her hand was, it was apparently trying to kill her.

She made her way across the frozen expanse she’d trekked across just… just whenever-it-was ago, back when she’d made her way to the chantry to find out how bad the humans’ war had gotten. The only good news about all of this was that, when she found a bow and picked it up, the hole in her hand didn’t swallow the weapon or chew on it or anything, but instead let her wrap her palm around the wood and hold it as if her hand was still normal.

Cassandra insisted they would find others ahead. To her surprise, they actually did. Two men, and neither of them human. She looked at the short one, the dwarf. He was even shorter than she’d expected. She’d never seen a dwarf before, had only read about them in books. The books had clearly been off, at least slightly; this dwarf had no beard.

She wanted to talk to him.

The other was an elf, male. At first, she thought he might be from another clan, one who had thought to do the same as her clan had. But he wasn’t; he was bare-faced – a lone ‘apostate,’ as Cassandra called him – which meant a mage; it was something else she’d learned from her books. It was what the humans of that village had called her brother.

She learned he’d been the one to save her after she’d escaped the human chantry. She thanked him. He seemed surprised to hear the words.

The mark on her palm throbbed.

They’d begun to make their way forward once again when a single hand on her arm stopped her. She looked up to see the elven man – Solas, he’d said his name was – standing beside her. There was something in his gaze that made her stiffen. “I must apologize,” he said, his voice low so as to not alert the human and dwarf before them. “While I was treating you, I saw your Bane.”

She flinched. Her hand reached back as if of its own volition, touching the back of her shoulder where the words began. The man had the grace to look away from her as he spoke, giving her the chance to get her reaction under control. _“Ir abelas.”_ She sucked in a breath. “Your armor was tight; you were having trouble breathing.”

He’d had to have her undressed to keep her alive. He could have called for a woman to do it. But… she looked over to Cassandra, who had caught them speaking with one another and had stopped, her eyes narrowed. The human didn’t trust her. She thought Pinga responsible for whatever had happened. She refused to see her as a victim. Any of the other humans, even the elves raised by them, would likely have informed all and sundry of what they’d seen.

Surely, he had thought the same. She looked at him. He turned his gaze back to her; she stared at those brown eyes for a long time before taking a deep breath. “You’ve not told anyone.”

Those brown eyes burned with something unnameable. “I am not so cruel.”

She nodded. “Then… thank you. For keeping others from seeing.”

The man simply nodded. He didn’t say anything more as she turned away. Even the dwarf was watching them, a brow cocked as they made their way back to the two. “Is that an elf thing?” the dwarf – Varric – wondered out loud. “Being all secretive with each other.”

“Her health is still on the mend,” Solas said, the lie slipping through his lips with ease. “It is best if she take precautions.”

Cassandra huffed. “There’s no point to precautions in this,” she said, spreading an arm to indicate the madness around them.

“On the contrary,” Solas said, “this seems exactly the right time for caution.”

“I’m gonna have to agree with the elf. Living is high on my list of priorities,” Varric said, and gave a smile to the two of them. Whoever he was, he didn’t see the shape of their ears. She smiled. She thought she might very well like him.

She looked back to Solas. He’d seen her Bane. He knew what she would have to carry, the threat that loomed over her shoulder at every turn. But he didn’t seem concerned. She would have to ask him why. Maybe he knew how to keep Fen’Harel at bay. He was a mage, after all. He may know spells that could help.

Despite everything, she felt a frisson of excitement shiver up her spine. For the first time in a long time, she was facing the opportunity to learn something new. She would grasp it with both hands.

* * *

This was his fault.

Once again, Solas had managed to survive. To survive yet another calamity caused by his hands. This time, however, it was not up to him to set it right.

No. That curse – that Bane – had been placed upon another. A waif of an elf, a woman barely old enough to not be called a child. She said she was twenty-four – _twenty-_ _four_ _._ It was an age Solas still had trouble grasping for elves; he was used to humans having such a tiny lifespan, but not his own people. Just speaking with her those first few times felt like he was speaking with jailbait – which apparently could never stop his foolishness. The moment she said, “so you’re suggesting I’m graceful?” he had come on to her so strongly he’d been surprised. He’d feared that there would be some sort of strange connection between them, that he would be drawn to his power resting inside her. He took a step back from her then, even as she raised a brow and hummed a noncommittal response – one laced with overtones – at his response about _declaring it_. Where was he even going with that one?

He feared the strange yearning to be near her for months. For months, he ignored how drawn he was to her smile, her laugh, her insatiable curiosity. He cut down her idea that he might be related to some Dalish clan immediately, only to find her interest in him grow. Just when he thought she’d run out of questions, she managed to rapid-fire a few more. And not just to him – to everyone. He saw her standing in front of the fire next to Varric for over an hour, just listening with wide eyes as the dwarf talked and talked and talked. When he’d mentioned it in passing, the man had chuckled and joked about barely having enough stories in his head to keep the woman entertained.

From there, it had merely exploded outward. She would speak with Threnn, the quartermaster. Harritt, the blacksmith. Minaeve. Adan – for whom she even ran around finding things like a servant. Mother Giselle, with whom he’d caught her having an actual debate, asking questions about the woman’s beliefs and then cutting through the more foolish platitudes and propaganda, yet still asking for more, as if trying to almost make the mother think through her beliefs, herself.

And then there was the reading. The woman would stop mid-stride, only to charge up to a stray piece of paper, snatch it up, and read it. More often than not, her doing this got them all involved in something, whether it be a family feud, a lost item, or even a hunt for a key to enter a locked building – “because it’s interesting!” she’d say. And off they would go, her eyes alight with a desire to _know_. And he would find her, sometimes, sitting on a patch of logs or along Haven’s walls or, once, atop a building, her nose pressed into one of Haven’s chantry’s books. “Are you a believer in the faith?” he’d asked her once, only to hear her snort.

“Not at all! But isn’t it fascinating?”

For someone cursed to carry ‘the weight of the wolf,’ she seemed bound and determined to live like someone having the time of her life.

* * *

He was surprised by the gut-wrenching ball of lead that slammed into his chest when he turned around and found Pinga was not behind them. The avalanche roared in his ears. It sounded like laughter. It sounded like blame.

He couldn’t breathe again until she was found. Until she woke up. Until she came at the tilt of his head and smiled at him.

He was doomed.

* * *

Fear meant putting oneself before those one might care for. It meant putting one’s own survival before love. She thought she was beginning to understand, because she was starting to feel the fear, herself.

Things were much larger, much more dangerous, than she’d feared. The human war on magic had been the snap of the twig, not the full stampede. She’d been pulled into it all by the mark on her hand. More and more, she feared the intervention of Fen’Harel in everything that had happened. This curse she carried, this ability she had that made it necessary for her to remain with the budding Inquisition, that made only her able to close the Rifts formed from the Breach in the sky – it felt like the greatest weight a person could have to carry.

So when she spoke to Solas and he brought up the artifact – the spherical item that The Elder One, Corypheus, had held in his hand as he’d prepared to kill her – she suddenly understood. “An elven artifact,” she whispered.

“So it would seem,” Solas said, and right there, surrounded by humans, she bent her head and tried to control the too-rapid tempo of her heart.

Her mother had asked her to put love above all else. But it was hard, so very hard, when all she felt was fear.

The time had come. Her Bane was now at work.

* * *

That said, she was starting to get the hang of this.

Granted, that belief came at the cost of hypothermia and a near-death experience so close it reared its head in her nightmares. But she really was getting a hang of it. Carrying the mark had become easier with time – with friends. She’d never thought she would be able to get along with a group of people outside her clan like this, but she was happy to be proven wrong. As horrible as humans had originally been to her, that was how kind and accommodating they’d become over time. She well knew it was due at least slightly to the ridiculous idea that she was chosen by their religious leader – a female human risen to godhood, if she’d read the books correctly.

She said, over and over again, that she didn’t believe in their god. Her friends, at least, seemed willing to accept that – except Cassandra and perhaps Varric, who admitted once to wondering what she was. Dorian had expressed something similar. It made her highly uncomfortable. She took solace in, well, Solas, and Cole and The Iron Bull, and even Vivienne, sometimes, because none of them thought her anything other than who she was.

Solas, in particular, seemed to understand her concerns. Whenever people started speaking too loudly about her being the chosen one, he would come up with some excuse as to why they would need to speak. Cole began doing the same, popping up and somehow making people forget they were even speaking with her. Solas’ eyes said he was seeing something dark – something he might have seen in, say, the Fade. According to him, it hadn’t gone well.

Or perhaps he was staring at her like that because they’d kissed in said Fade, and the man had no idea what to do with that. _She_ didn’t know what to do with it. The man had to know she carried a Bane that made this mark one created by Fen’Harel – though _why_ would Fen’Harel join with a human Tevinter magister? He was a troublemaker, but she didn’t think he’d join with those who destroyed Arlathan.

Who knew.

Thankfully, there were plenty of Rifts to test herself out on (she says thankfully, but really, deeper down, she likely just means _annoyingly_ ). And she really was getting it. People were interesting, and her group of friends was so diverse, she kept hearing different opinions on everything she saw and did. She got access to so many books it made her head spin. She even met with other elven clans who were willing to share what they knew of elven culture and history with her. She even learned new secrets about her people!

But it was that kiss, that moment, that taught her what her mother had meant.

So many people all around her, were falling to fear and hate and lies. She saw them everywhere. She saw them with the mages and the templars, in what they were willing to do for freedom. She saw what Alexius became in his efforts to save his son. She saw how Orlesians dealt with the ideas of leadership and change. She saw it all, and one by one, each puzzle piece clicked into place.

Alexius didn’t ‘love too much’ – he placed his own happiness above the happiness of the one he loved. He wanted the person to live. He hadn’t cared about what Felix had wanted at all.

Celene cared about power and prestige. Not unlike Vivienne, she placed that above any love she may have had for her country and her people. Including the woman she loved.

Briala wanted justice and equality. She’d placed that above the lives of her people and the care she had for a human who chose power over love.

The wardens, too, placed duty and obligation above the very reason they’d chosen to join the Grey Wardens – to defend and protect the world, the people, they loved.

She could make the same mistake. It was in her power to choose the safety of her people, the chance for equality, to right the wrongs done to elves for centuries – for millennia. She could choose several different paths, each tied to placing something of herself first. Curiosity. Justice.

There was no such thing as loving too much. There was only _wanting something else more_.

She looked at Solas as he painted, his body tilting onto one foot as he reached in a sweeping motion toward the edge of the outline he’d made on the wall. She knew what she wanted, and it was, as she’d deemed as a child, simple.

Putting it first was what was hard.

* * *

So many times, he’d nearly made the wrong decision. Over and over again, he’d made it. He’d reached for her the moment he’d gotten her back from the Fade, amazed she was in his arms and not – not left behind, as he’d feared. She’d been so late coming out–

Never before had he feared and despised the Fade. Never before had he detested what lurked within. Then, head buried in the soft coif of her silken hair, hands tight around her as the Grey Wardens were led away by the Inquisition, he could understand the hatred and fear this time period held for the Fade. It had grown dark with the strength of the worst of its denizens. Pinga had almost been the one to pay the price.

When they’d returned to _Terasyl’an te’las_ was when he realized just what it was he was doing. Fearing for a certain person above all else? Caring for them more than for that which he’d loved all his life? Wishing to spare them anything and everything they must go through? Staring at them when there was no need, only to feel at ease once they were in sight?

He was in love.

He was the biggest fool in Thedas.

* * *

She tried not to be broken when Solas chose something else before her.

She tried not to, because she understood now what was happening. But that didn’t change anything for her. It still _hurt_.

She wasn’t so blind that she couldn’t see some unnamed burden Solas carried around with him. No matter what anyone said, people didn’t travel alone through the wilds of Thedas without there being a reason why they were, well. Alone. And she’d asked, once, a long time ago, if he had any friends, to which he had named spirits from the Fade. He had named no other.

Who lived such a way? Who chose a path that meant never returning home – unless there was no home to return to, no person with whom to seek rest?

Whatever it was he carried – guilt, absolution, fear – it was stronger for him than love. She thought she understood. She thought she could even accept. She thought, over time, there might be some way to convince him to let go of that – to let go of it the way she’d begged him to let go of his need for revenge when Wisdom had died.

If only he had given her a chance.

Victory had come. She had swept over Corypheus’ plans one time too many, and with her friends’ help, she had managed to stop the magister once and for all. She’d sealed him away. Broken Fen’Harel’s orb along with it, but had managed to win. Solas had been heartbroken at the loss of the orb. He’d said – he’d told her what they’d had was real.

It was a good-bye. She’d known it. She’d just thought she’d have the time to talk him out of it.

She’d been wrong.

* * *

He’d caught her dancing, once. Back at Skyhold, in a corner of the practice fields, late at night. She’d dipped low, one foot before her, the other bent so she could twist her waist almost fully around, her arms lifted into the sky, toward the moonlight. It was an old dance, one to honor the goddess Mythal. The lines of her vallaslin had nearly gleamed.

She hadn’t seen him. He had watched, transfixed, knowing it was a private moment and cursing himself for not turning away faster. She’d been wearing attire unlike any he normally saw on her – a loose shirt of bright, silver silk, with tight black pants that shaped around her derriere in a way not unlike the leather she wore around the keep. She danced barefoot in the grass, evidenced when she lifted one leg up to twirl around and balance one-legged as she acted as if to reach, in supplication, for the hand of her goddess.

He’d had to close his eyes to make himself stop watching. It had taken every ounce of his control to leave and not take that hand in his, to stop the tainted dance and lead her into something else.

He thought about that night often as he spent his nights alone, hearing the clock tick down on the Inquisition. He would have to intervene. To let the Qunari go unchecked would be worse than… than what? Allowing them to win for the short time they were to live?

He didn’t want that to happen. He was taking a path that would lead to the deaths of so many – Pinga potentially included. But he couldn’t stand the thought of Pinga being forced to become subject to the Qun. The very idea made his fingers curl into fists.

And when she found out? he asked himself. When she learned who he was and what he planned to do? What then?

He would deal. It was just one more price. One more penance.

One more punishment. What a wonderful Boon, surviving was.

* * *

She’d known.

She’d known, running forward, speaking with the Viddesala, who it was the woman referenced when she said Pinga had been working for Fen’Harel all along. She knew, and she found herself playing dumb. Why? Her friends were all giving her looks. They knew, too. Who was she trying to fool? Herself? Because for two years, she’d been trusting in someone who had been working for Fen’Harel all along? Someone who had known what her Bane had been and had allowed everything to happen as it did. Who had been with her, kissed her–

She hadn’t been able to stand thinking about it. Her mother’s lips moved in her mind’s eyes. She couldn’t hear her voice anymore, but still she understood the words.

_Love is the most important thing._

“I need to know,” she’d whispered, and had headed through the last eluvian.

She’d known the instant she’d seen him dressed in golden armor. If it weren’t for the pain in her hand, she might have broken down and cried right there.

He explained everything. He was good enough to do that. But when it all was said and done, he had lied to her about the most important thing. “You acted as if you didn’t know,” she said. “You were Fen’Harel himself, and you didn’t bother speaking to me about my Bane.”

“No,” he said simply. Not bothering to deny it. Not defending himself. Not pretending he could apologize and make it better. She hated him for recognizing that.

_Love is the most important thing_.

“What was most important?” she asked. She looked up at him, into those bright brown eyes, and found only confusion. “What was it? This desire for, what? Reparation? Revenge? Some feeling of obligation? Wasn’t it you who said that sometimes inaction was better than action?”

He winced. Taking the blows on the chin, because he knew he deserved them. Or perhaps because the tears were coming, anyway, and she couldn’t find a way to stop them.

“You say you need to fix things. To make things right. For _who?_ Us? The elves, the people you said weren’t your people? Or for yourself, because you feel guilty?” She wiped madly at the tears falling down her cheeks. She didn’t want them there. “You couldn’t even tell me that it was _your_ orb that had given me this,” she said, shaking her glowing left hand. She could feel the electricity within it, the hunger as it waited to devour her. “You couldn’t even tell me this simple truth.”

“I wanted to,” he whispered. As if that meant anything. Clearly he agreed, because he dropped the subject entirely. “What I did destroyed the elves. You’ve lost everything.”

_I’m losing everything,_ she thought, but couldn’t find the strength to say it out loud.

He was choosing duty over love. She understood it now. She just didn’t know how to stop it. He told her of the elves’ lost pasts. He spoke of what he’d done, and what he planned. He admitted to walking the _dinan’shiral_. “But don’t worry,” he said, with a small smile, seeing how her breath hitched when he told her his path. “My Boon states that I will survive.”

She stared, wide-eyed, at his admission. “What?”

“‘Will survive.’ That is my Boon.”

Her heart picked up again. It almost hurt. As if hope was quickening some sort of poison in her veins. She swayed where she stood. Her mind went numb as it cataloged what Solas was saying.

The man’s eyes looked so empty. She knew what it meant. She knew, it that instant, what all of it meant. And she knew he hadn’t lied. What they’d had had been real. There could be no other reason for the look of desolation on his face, as he told her he might live, but she likely would not.

Perhaps he had understood, too.

* * *

He’d left her with that last lie.

It might have been cruel. _Was_ cruel, to continue giving her nothing but platitudes when she offered nothing but love in return. Even at the end, after everything he’d done, she still swore that they would endure.

How to tell her that she likely wouldn’t survive what he had planned? That so many, too many, would be lost? She’d been broken-hearted to learn the humans and dwarves she’d come to love would be placed in jeopardy by his actions. To know elves themselves could die – no. He couldn’t let her know. He didn’t want to see that look on her face again.

If he was lucky, he would never have to. He hadn’t told her that his Boon had already come and gone. How he had survived a war against impossible odds, had woken from his slumber when countless others had fallen still in their dreams, never to wake. How he had survived time and again, over millennia of impossible moments. This time, he would not live to see the end of the war. And such was exactly what he wished for.

If he did everything right – if he made no mistakes – then Pinga would have a chance at living. But if he messed up, even the slightest – he would not wish to live in a world where, in order to save the elves, he’d sacrificed the one most dear to him. Who had helped him to once again believe that things could be made right.

If this could be the last comfort he gave her, then so be it. It was the only thing he could give to someone he loved when there was something so much more important at stake.

* * *

How many times, he wondered, would he get it wrong?

So many years, he’d spent planning for this day. This last year fighting against the current of Pinga and her people, of what was left of the Inquisition, as he made his way through the steps leading to this moment, had seemed even longer. The Veil shuddered and tore around them, the wind blowing in a maelstrom that pushed against every surface. The trees bowed to its might as if in the center of a terrible storm. The rock face he’d built his work upon cracked beneath the pressure of the worlds as they crashed together once more, for the first time in nearly four thousand years.

“It’s over,” he said, facing the crowd before him. “All that’s left is the final step.”

Pinga watched, just across the edge of the clearing, her people surrounding her. The friend she’d had running throughout the Imperium stood beside her, murmuring something in her ear. With her remaining hand, Pinga shushed the woman. Her eyes stayed on him. All around her, her people clashed with his. Even as she was, she stood amid the madness, her friend blocking one elf’s attack, then another. Solas’ lieutenants finally pulled her new friend away. Pinga was alone.

She raced to Solas’ side nonetheless. Even watching, he wasn’t certain how she did it. She… danced. Dipped low, twisted away from enemy swords. One arrow snaked beneath her arm, cut across the side of her armor. Solas twisted it away with the last of his strength. He would not watch her die. Not right before his eyes.

_How many times would he get it wrong?_

She ran up to him, cuts lacing her arms, her legs, her torso. He’d missed one arrow; it had hit her in the back, forcing her to lean over as she jumped upon the rock face where he stood, his body weak after all the mana he’d pulled. His allies lay still beside him, obstacles for her to move across as she came to stand before him. All his men had failed to keep one young woman from his side at the end. He smiled at her. “Come to ensure my Boon doesn’t work this time?” he asked. If she did kill him, it would only speed up the inevitable. The final step meant feeding the Veil a set of coordinates – a reminder of what it had once hidden away. Elves could see the Crossroads and the Fade more clearly because they were still connected with it. All the Veil needed was that reminder – that elven blood.

His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been shouting for days. He felt his knees start to give.

She caught him as he fell, helped him into a sitting position upon the hard stone. Her lips tilted in a smile. He’d missed that smile more than anything. “It’s too late for that, isn’t it?” She snorted. Brushed her thumb against the sharp bone of his cheek. “You truly don’t know,” she said, and something in her voice brought his addled mind sharply back into focus. “Even though it seems so obvious to me, you truly don’t see it.” She laughed. Tilted her head back and laughed, even now, in the middle of a battlefield, when everything was falling apart. She finally stopped and leaned her forehead against his. His was cold and clammy; hers felt like the sun. “Do you know what my mother always told me?”

In all their time together, Pinga had spoken of her past about as much as he had his. “No,” he said.

Her eyes were too close to bring into proper focus. They were just a haze of purple. “She said love was the most important thing.” He tried to blink her into focus. He wanted to see her eyes. But she didn’t let him pull away so he could see. She kept her right hand on the back of his head and gripped tight. “She said it was more important than duty, or revenge, or my own happiness. If I loved others, if I put that love first, then I would never hurt those I love. If I stayed true to that, I might not even hurt myself.” Her voice cracked. He felt something drip onto his cheek. “It took me so long to understand. But she’s right. I just need to remember what’s most important. And that’s _you_. You, and this world. I swear to you. Your Boon is right.” Finally, she pulled back. Tears tracked down her cheeks, wet her smiling lips. “And so is my Bane.”

No.

_No._

He understood. He understood too late.

He was too weak to stand, to reach out when she pulled away completely. She stood almost to her full height; from the way she bent around the jut of the arrow inside her, he could tell it was hurting her. Yet still she stood.

“Don’t,” he said. It came out garbled, his breath seizing in his lungs. He could feel exhaustion sweeping over him. The world itself pulsed with light. The Fade roared open around them.

“ _Ar lath ma,”_ she said, and turned to the blistered Veil. _“Mamae,”_ she whispered, _“ir garal.”_

He pushed. With every last part of himself, he fought to reach out. She slid into the gap in the Veil. _“No!”_

The Veil pulsed. Once. Twice. It shone in all the colors of the world. The world he remembered. He blinked against it, put a hand before him to shield his eyes so he could continue to search, even though he knew he would see nothing. Nothing but light. Pinga was gone.

He had won.

He had, he thought, the tears so thick they couldn’t fall, survived.

**Author's Note:**

> Though readers have likely deduced the meaning of most of these:
> 
> Mamae - Mom  
> Babae - Dad  
> Da'len - Little one  
> Ir abelas - I'm Sorry  
> Terasyl'an Te'las - The Place That Touches the Sky; the name for Skyhold  
> Ar lath ma - I love you  
> Ir garal - I'm coming


End file.
